Unglued
by Antipatheia
Summary: This is hope and want and love and denial - there was never a friendship. There was never a sign. There was never even a goodbye. Slight Mori-centric with an original character, with mentions of Honey.


**Unglued**

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Towards the end, nothing changed. She had always thought that there would be a sign, or signs. Omens, maybe. Definitely portions of her life that would snap in half.

There weren't.

But Asura still felt as though she should have seen it coming, and the helpless anger and despair that rushed through her at all times signalled her body's agreement.

Not that she had liked the rich bastard, or anything. He was an absolute unobtainable spurious member of the self-proclaimed elite, and she had never felt the need to let him know that it, because quite frankly, he already knew.

The thing was...there had been times when - when he had almost... smiled, and it was the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

She fell in half-love (she never would admit to more, not even to herself) with him all over again every infrequent time his lips had quirked into that strange, crooked half-smile. She supposed it was the best he could do.

She saw it as the best anyone could ever hope to do. It was gorgeous.

Takashi Morinozuka-san was gorgeous, but not in the way anyone else saw him. She was a 'commoner', damn it, and she didn't fall over herself for a pretty face. The smile was just so rare, and that made it all the more lovely, never mind the fact that she wasn't that kind of girl. Asura's nails were always broken, her thick black hair was always pulled back, and the maids' uniform she wore always had a stain from something she had been cleaning. She couldn't go a sentence without swearing and, hygienic as she was, she smelled like a strange mixture of cleaning solvent, sandalwood and the perfume that the Lady of the house wore.

And he had always smelled like the sweets that Mitsukuni Haninozuka-san ate when he was around and steel and oranges and something else she could never name. Lovely.

They worked, in a weird way. Anyone who saw them interact - a small number - had a brain standstill caused by the hiccup in the Laws of the Universe; that hiccup being Mori's strange tolerance of the lowly household maid who came from obscurity. She would fold his clothes and make his bed and work in silence, and he would stand as still as a statue and watch her work (sometimes she actually caught him looking confused, like that time when she accidently swore after spilling a vase full of flowers without realizing he was there) and sometimes he would just sit down and wait while she tidied his room and she was never really sure why.

She would say, "Morinozuka-san, would you prefer the lavender bed sheets or the ochre?"

And he would raise his cool gray eyes to her own brown ones before looking out the vast French silhouetted windows, and grunt an ineloquent "Hn."

And she would take that as the ochre, because lavender was a far too frivolous color for Morinozuka-san anyways, and sometimes she wondered why she would even ask, because she always knew the answer. Perhaps it was just because she liked to hear the sound of his voice, even if it was just an unstated grunt. So she would say, "Yes, Morinozuka-san. Of course." And she would smile at him and from the closet pull out the tepid golden-yellow sheets of 1500 thread count; the softest in the world and spread them across the luxurious oversized mattress, the one that almost matched the size of her living quarters in the servant's wing. She loved those warm, golden-yellow sheets, almost as much as she loved Morinozuka-san when he smiled. They suited him well.

And once, just _once_, when she had first started working at the Morinozuka Estate, and she was having trouble smoothing the fabric of the bed sheets on such a large surface and found it even more so difficult to turn in the creases, she remembered him helping her, suddenly and sporadically, in dead silence (she hadn't even realized he had moved from his corner in the room); his deft hands holding the corners of the fabric still while she blushed furiously at her own ineptness and embarrassment as she tucked the material into the underside of the mattress. She thought for sure after that she would be fired.

But she wasn't, and she kept on changing the sheets on Morinozuka-sans bed, day after day, week after week, and soon the process was ingrained into her memory.

Sometimes (a lot of the times) Mitsukuni Haninozuka-san was there, and he would, in a voice so small and cute, say, "Asura-chan really knows how to brighten up a room, doesn't she, Takashi?", and Morinozuka-san, in his silence, would look up and quirk a brow and say, "Ah". And she would say, "Thank-you, Haninozuka-san. You're too kind," and bow her head with folded hands. And sometimes the little blond would ask if liked cake, or sweets, or tea, and she would answer, yes, and no and maybe and he would smile and say to Morinozuka-san, "Asura-chan is so nice." Morinozuka-san would say, "Ah" or "Hn," and Haninozuka-san would laugh and they would leave and she would continue on with her cleaning.

"Goodbye, Asura-chan! Goodbye!"

"Ah...goodbye."

And after a while, those little "_Ah's_" and "_Hn's_" became like clockwork to her, and the tone in which he spoke them became clear and easy to understand. She knew when he needed to get something off his chest or when he was angry, or sad or upset or even worried. His face, people said, never seemed to change, but she noticed little cracks in his facade, like the wrinkle by his left eye whenever he was happy, or the twitch in his right cheek whenever he was annoyed. Sometimes, when he was particularly upset, and even though it was none of her business, not really, she would ask, "Morinozuka-san, are you alright? You seem rather disconcerted today." He would flop down in his chair by the French door windows and sometimes, he would say in a voice so clear, "No."

"Would you like me to bring you some tea, Morinozuka-san?" she would ask. "Or perhaps something to eat? Natto, or maybe some sashimi?" And he would grunt, and she would scurry off to the kitchens and return with a tray of green herbal tea and bowl of steaming natto rice and a side of thinly sliced fugo sashimi for him to eat.

Sometimes she would leave, but other times as she was placing down the tray, he would say, "Mitsukuni is ill," or, "Satoshi had an accident," and she would take this as her indication to sit down next to him and listen. And she would say, "I'm sure Haninozuka-san will get better soon," and, "Yes, I heard from Morinozuka-tono this morning. I'm so sorry, Morinozuka-san. I hope he will be alright." And this is how things went; it wasn't proper and it certainly wasn't right, but it happened none the less. Maybe, if you asked the right people, he never told her anything, never managed to because of the differences between them, and she was who she was who she was and that wasn't him: rich.

And then one day he graduated. His ice-gray eyes flashed over to her brown ones and then settled back at gray, and he left to study abroad. That was to be expected, she guessed.

She didn't cry or make a scene or anything of the sort. She went back to changing bed sheets and washing windows and cleaning the dust off the furniture in his room, even though he wasn't there. I mean, it's not that she had liked the rich bastard, or anything.

But still, just when she was getting to the level where she thought, '_Maybe we can be equals_,' and, '_Maybe we could be friends_' it was the end.

Towards the end, nothing changed. She was still changing his bed sheets, always ochre, and never lavender, and Haninozuka-san was still asking if she liked cakes and sweets, and she was always bringing Morinozuka-san tea and something to eat when he was upset. Yet she had always thought that there would be a sign, or signs. Omens, maybe. Definitely portions of her life that would snap in half. Perhaps one day he would have indicated lavender sheets instead of ochre, and Haninozuka-san would stop asking about candy, and he wouldn't answer her when she asked if he was upset. Yes, she was always looking for a sign to break the indifference; a sign to show he cared.

There weren't, and he never did say good-bye.

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**AN:** Thoughts? Comments? Feelings? Reviews make me happy, so click the button and write away!


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